I couldn't think of what forum subsection this one would belong in so here it is.

I am strange, and sometimes I really wonder how strange I am in comparison to other people. So I'm curious. There was a thread a while back asking why atheists talk to dead loved ones, or why we curse god etc.. This is related in a sort of kind of way

It's an overcast day, but you know you have things that you have to do outside. All day you put it off with the occasional glance out the window, knowing full well that it wont rain until you have to go outside. But time passes and you run out of excuses, you open the door, surprised that it hasn't started flooding. You must be lucky today. So you get to work, maybe cutting the grass and then it happens. The rain. But you push on and finish your work, all the while cursing the rain gods. When you're done you go inside to dry off and get the hell out of the rain. With a towel wrapped around your sopping wet disgusting head you peek out the window only to see that the rain has stopped.

Feels almost too coincidental.
We've all had moments like this one, hell I have tons of them every day. But being skeptics we all brush it off as daily annoyance. Pure coincidence. It can't be god laughing at me, there is no such thing as fate. Or luck.

My question is how many of you have actually gotten mad at the invisible likely to be non existent god? Actually internally debated as to whether there was a douche bag in the sky just fucking with you. Trying to see how far he can take it before your mind breaks.

I actually do this all the time. I believe in the possibility of all possibility, it's likelihood that makes me side one way or another. I can't ever rule something out completely unless there is genuine evidence for it. Even then my brain has a hard time with the idea of 100%.

So for me since I can't actually prove the non existence of a god, there remains a percent chance that there is one, and in that I use likelihood to determine what kind of god it would probably be, and then I narrow it down. To me If there were a god he'd probably be either accidental, or a dick. So that's like 50/50 that if there were a god he would actually find entertainment in fucking with people.

Sometimes things seem far too coincidental. They say bad things come in threes but for me it's like they never end. Don't get me wrong, I have lots of good things in my life, and I find joy in the oddest of things but man. Man oh man. It fucking rains every-time I have to go outside. Unless I bring an umbrella. Then it doesn't. Or if it's summer obviously.

I curse the god of coincidence. Whether he exists or not.

"I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments." -Jim Morrison

There's a short sci-fi story I read once about a guy who's a rain God but doesn't know it - he hates rain, but the clouds all love him because he is their God, so wherever he goes it's always raining Just adding some grist to your mill

You all know im a bit of an oddball but now your gonna think im even more fucking weird

When I was a Kid I suffered from quite bad nightmares and I used to wake up not being able to move or breathe. It got to a stage where I used to dread going to sleep because of it. One night I had a nightmare and I became "lucid" and I realised I was dreaming and I woke up myself up. This skill has stuck with me alongside the lucidity. Not every night I go lucid and if I go on large weed binges I dont remember my dreams at all.

My dreams are mega complex. Part of me thinks its all to do with Sub C but then there is some strange weirdness to them. I remember when I was a child a very vivid dream of me walking along a street at a seaside town. There was a lot of red buses knocking about and I remember looking up at this house and seeing a person upstairs watching me walk past.....even then the person seemed familiar to me and I had a sense of deja-vu and the person waved but I just ignored them.

A few years ago I had a dream and I was in a house and everything seemed really familiar although I didnt know why, so I started to explore the house with a massive sense of deja-vu and I eventually went upstairs and looked out of the window. I immediatly recognised the seaside town from years ago and I looked down into the street and saw myself as a child. I waved at myself and me as a child just ignored me and it freaked me out and I woke myself up.

I think Sub C is probably the most logical explanation to what I experienced..... however there are certain places I have revisited in dreams before with different people and different scenarios.... But I know the place, even though I have never been there.

Well you may be thinking what the fuck has this got to do with the OP

Well there has been times when I have had deja-vu where I have had the sense that I might of dreamt the situation before....obv with deja-vu you have that feeling but it cannot be grasped....its allways out of reach. Well I have read the explanations about deja-vu and I cant dismiss them. What is weird though is one day at work we had finished (I am a binman/refuse collector for my local authority) and we were heading towards the tip to empty the wagon. We pulled up at some lights and I had some real strong Deja-Vu and I managed to grasp it and knew I had dreamt the situation.....I told Steve and Jeff my then co-workers and I explained that a woman was going to walk around the corner pushing a pushchair/pram and I described what the woman looked like and what she was wearing. To all of our surprise the woman who I described walked around the corner (no bullshit I aint trolling anybody here). Steve and Jeff were like how did I manage to do that "trick" and I obv explained that there is no way I could of seen around the corner. There was a pub in the way.

I dont know........its weird and fucked up but cool at the same time.

So with regards to fate and stuff I just dont know...... I cant dismiss the fact that its all most likely just all in my head and I was lucky to have guessed the woman or without conciously knowing seen her briefly in a reflection of a window or something before she walked around the corner. Its just weird that I had the deja-vu at the same time.

Looking out the window and thinking that it allways rains may be similar to the 11:11 thing that a lot of people experience. I get it a lot where I see the same sequential numbers and the only logical situation I can come up with is this event sticks in my mind.....so on the occasions I do see sequential numbers it sticks out because Ive made myself conciously aware to see them.

If you go out lucradis and you think it allways rains I think you may look for these times and they stick out more...much like my sequential numbers....where in reality you may go out a lot with it not raining but conciously they just dont stick out to you......like the times I look at the clock and the numbers are not sequential.

I dunno im just weird

For no matter how much I use these symbols, to describe symptoms of my existence.
You are your own emphasis.
So I say nothing.

So it was semi. Sunny all day today. I wanted a coffee so I went to get one. Guess what? It both rained and snowed in me. But guess what else? That's right it's sunny out again as I sit inside.
Fuck you coincidence god.

"I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments." -Jim Morrison

(05-03-2012 05:01 PM)lucradis Wrote: But my other question is, how do we know if it is only coincidence and not fate?

Just so everyone knows I don't actually put any stock in fate. In the purest form of it anyways.

Hmmmm, good question.
Technically, from our perspective, I don't think we ever really could tell the difference. I believe it would require us to view events from a "higher" level. I.E. a forth or higher dimension of space and/or a second or higher dimension of time.

Plus, relativity would come into play. Would a single event be viewed by all as fate/coincidence? Or would there be a spread. Plus of course personal subjectivity, beliefs, circumstances, etc would impact your decision which one it was.

And just to circle back to my above quote, the same character in a similar situation a couple seasons later changed his tune and stated....
"Don't mistake fate for coincidence."
Which doesn't help the matter any......